Wednesday, March 28, 2007

The news that rat poison is the likely culprit in the rash of pet deaths caused by eating contaminated foods has set off the conspiracy theorists. But Deborah Blum, writing today in the New York Times, reminds us that poisoned pets are an unfortunate but predictable outcome of living in a world full of intentional poisons:

"We lean toward the saboteur and the murderous poisoner because they’ve always lived among us, and because they make excellent scapegoats. But we’re all poisoners in our way — purchasers of roach sprays, consumers of perfect produce delivered by grace of dangerous chemicals. Every so often, we are forced to realize that, like the arsenic poisoners of old, our lifestyle also demands innocent victims."

The most current theory goes like this: The Chinese processing facility that supplied Menu Foods with contaminated wheat gluten had a rat problem - not too surprising. They used rat poison to deal with it - a perfectly run-of-the-mill thing to do. The idea that pesticides don't stick where you put them, and sometimes wind up causing real harm, shouldn't surprise us. We've seen it over and over again, in our food, in our water and in our bodies. It doesn't take a saboteur to get pesticides into our bodies - they get there easily without malicious interference.

Look no further than the poisoner in the miror, says Blum. Until we develop a lifestyle that doesn't depend on poisons, we can expect to continue producing innocent victims as well.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

In recognition of National Poison Prevention Week (March 18-24), the US EPA has issued recommendations regarding the tens of thousands of children who are sickened by rodenticides - rat poison - every year in the United States. Rat poison is extremely dangerous to children because of its high toxicity - rats have strong constitutions - and because the little pellets can look just like candy to a small child. Low-income and minority children have been most heavily affected - EPA's recommendations note for example that the vast majority of children hospitalized in New York state for rodenticide poisoning are black and Latino.

EPA is now soliciting public comment on a new decision that will end the sale of the pellets, and require that all rat poison sold in the United States be sold as blocks within tamper-resistant bait stations. EPA has finally come up with the right decision, but much too late.

For many years EPA bowed to pressure from pesticide manufacturers who protested against changing their rat poison formulations, despite a 1998 scientific review that would have required them to add bittering agents and indicator dyes to the pellets to protect children. This position was reversed in 2001, when EPA decided the protective measures would make the poisons "less attractive to rats."

A 2005 court ruling in a lawsuit from West Harlem Environmental Action and the Natural Resources Defense Council ordered EPA to undo its 2001 mistake and enact the children's protections. A full two years later (and nine years after the scientific review that recommended it in the first place), EPA is finally issuing the rules that will pull dangerous pellets off the shelves and prevent many thousands of unnecessary childhood poisonings every year.

If I were writing my comments to EPA on this proposed decision, I think the only thing I could say is "what took you so long?".